The physician touched the monocle to her skin. She didn’t move at the brush of the cold glass. Barrett’s eyes had chilled her more.
‘Oh. This is amazing. Amazing.’ He peered. ‘Her skin is perfect. After only one night of treatment. She’s cured.’ He stepped back.
‘After one night?’ she squeaked out the words. Relief. Disbelief and relief again. And then a memory of their guest, who seemed to know the physician, and then that Barrett had found her alone in the room the physician had sent her to.
Her mother clasped her hands in front of her. ‘How wonderful. Wondrous. Gavin, you are a physician without compare.’
‘Odd.’ She dotted her hand over her cheek. ‘I still feel the epidemeosis.’
‘Well, you may have a lingering trace I can’t detect.’ Gavin put the monocle back in his coat pocket. ‘If you wish to sit alone in the night air a few more times, I see no harm in it.’
‘I will consider it,’ she said. ‘And I do wish to thank you for saving my life.’ She put a little too much smile into the words and he glanced away.
‘Well. I wouldn’t go that far.’ He turned to her mother. ‘But miracles do seem to follow me around.’ His back was to her. He waved his arm out, his movements so close to the same gesture she’d seen on Barrett the night before.
She shut her eyes, listening, trying to gauge a resemblance between the men.
‘Do you think there is any chance she will develop it again?’ Her mother spoke.
‘No. Not at all. Miss Annabelle is recovered. We are fortunate to say the least.’
Annie excused herself and left them as they each congratulated each other on having done such a perfect job with her.
She’d only seen Barrett in the dim lighting but still, she’d looked at him with her whole being. She’d not paid as much attention to the physician before, but now she had. They were related. She would wager a month of her epidemeosis on that.
The physician had arranged a meeting and she’d attended just as planned. And Barrett had seen, or not seen, whatever he wished and now he was satisfied not to see her again if her miraculous recovery was anything to go by.
She remembered when the physician had first visited. He’d been so genial with her parents. So caring. He’d even enquired after her father’s business and they’d talked long into the night. She’d thought it odd that the physician had been willing to stay and listen to the tedious details of her father’s different holdings.
Then, later, her father had mentioned selling one of the shops at a ridiculously low amount, but how happy he’d been to get the money just when he needed it and he’d mentioned the Viscount’s son for the first time. Her father had been happy Barrett wasn’t the viper his father was and she’d felt reassured—freed from worrying about how her father would survive after she left home.
She reached up, took a pin from her hair and put a lock back in place, then walked to the window of her room. No carriages moved along the street. Each house as perfect as the other.
Barrett must live in a house much the same, yet the house had the memory of losing his mother.
A curtain fluttered in one of the windows across the street, and she wondered if a child had been looking out at her. And she wondered if Barrett’s grandmother still lived. If she’d passed on, Annie hoped he’d not danced on that day, though she wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.
* * *
Her eyes opened into the darkness and she wasn’t sure what time it was because she could no longer hear the clock’s chimes. The lamp still burned because she’d turned the knob low instead of putting it out.
Washing her face with cool water from the pitcher woke her completely and confirmed her determination.
She worked herself into her corset, putting it on backwards, lacing it, turning it and then pulling it up a bit more. It wasn’t easy, but it sufficed.
She wound her hair into a knot quickly and the pins went in place.
Creeping downstairs, she moved to the library to look at the clock. Two thirty. Well, let the soirée begin. A man’s room. She did have her sisters’ blood in her.
But not the ghastly, simpering, hug, hug, kiss, kiss, can’t live without you sop they’d inherited.
She couldn’t bear to be a victim to such nonsense. Barrett might think her an innocent and he was right. She had no reason to lose her innocence where love was concerned. She’d seen women about the ton carrying on with tales of broken hearts and husbands gone astray and being locked in a marriage with a lout.
A bad marriage led to misery and a good marriage led to brain rot.
Her own parents truly cared for each other and sighed over each other’s perfection. Their hours of conversation about what to ask Cook to prepare could destroy an appetite.
‘Whatever you would like, dearest.’
‘No, whatever you would like, dearest.’
‘Oh, no, whatever you would like.’
‘Dearest...’
‘Dearest...’
‘Dearest...’
But her mother wasn’t a mindless fluff when her father wasn’t around. True, she was a bit of a hypochondriac because she loved being fussed over, particularly by her husband. But, separate them and her mother could tally a balance sheet and organise the staff, all while twirling a knitting needle or playing pianoforte.
But Annie could not stay in ton and become one of the pretty posies doomed to decorate a man’s arm and his house and his children. She shuddered.
Barrett had a good thought when he told her she should learn to defend herself. She was destined, not doomed, but destined to become a spinster with a mind of her own. She’d almost perfected the spinster part, but having a mind of her own was giving her some trouble. She’d never be able to do that around her parents. They cried too easily.
She knocked on the oak door, hoping Barrett was right and that sound didn’t carry well.
She rapped again. He was certainly right about not being able to wake people easily in the night.
Then she considered kicking the door.
She couldn’t wait in the hallway forever.
Then she turned the latch and eased inside. The four-poster did look to have a shape in it, but she turned her head slightly aside because she shouldn’t look at a man in bed.
‘Pardon me,’ she whispered.
He didn’t move.
She slid back against the door and knocked on it from the inside.
‘Mr Barrett,’ she began on a whisper, but ended on a high note.
The form rolled over. Long arms. A muttered oath. ‘What—do you want?’ A wakening growl.
‘I thought about what you said.’
He sat up. Covers fell away. She closed her eyes and swallowed, forcing her courage to remain with her. Even in the dark, the man was a tower of strength. She opened her eyes and looked over his head.
He exhaled and his teeth were clenched. He finally spoke. ‘Couldn’t you have thought about it—tomorrow, after breakfast? Before dinner.’ He raised his hand and ran his fingers through his hair. She’d seen that movement before. On a pedlar when his cart of apples had been overturned.